


16 Years in the Making

by toxictundra



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - GTA, Canon-Typical Violence, Fake AH Crew, Gen, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 03:04:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5768914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toxictundra/pseuds/toxictundra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James didn't become the Vagabond overnight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	16 Years in the Making

**Author's Note:**

> alternatively titled _Baby's First Blunder: The Origin Stories_

Everything changed before he could register what was happening.

Summer in Georgia, five in the morning, milling about with a friend in a convenience store parking lot. They were in highschool, eleventh grade, working through the last few years before college, before their life really started.

James and a friend in a parking lot, James and a friend trading candies from a mix bag, James and a friend talking test scores.

James and a friend in a parking lot, looking up at the crunch of gravel. James and a friend trading glances at the sight of the troubled boys from their school approaching. James’ heart rate peaking at the glimmer of a switchblade in the moonlight, the flash of teeth and bloodshot eyes.

James and a friend scrambling up the convenience store wall, trying to back further into the bricks. James’ friend getting targeted and swiped at, before striking back and hitting one of the boys across the face. Everything grey, moving slower, hearts in throats and blood rushing behind ears.

James, a friend, and four boys with no future ahead of them in a convenience store parking lot. Fists and knives and dirty words. One of the four boys slipping up and sliding his blade into another’s throat. Three of four boys running away. James, a friend, and one boy dying between them. Too fast to register what happened.

James in his friend’s truck, panicking beside him, scrambling for his cellphone he knows he dropped. James’ friend with eyes forward, hands pale against the worn leather of the steering wheel. James and his friend on the road, down the highway, going nowhere, driving well into the morning. James and his friend driving the whole day, not talking, not thinking, just driving, always driving. James and his friend pulled over at night, trying to sleep. James saying we should go back, we can go back, we didn’t do anything wrong. James’ friend scoffing, reminder of his criminal record heavy between them. You didn’t do anything wrong, you’re a good person James says, trying to convince him.

James’ friend starting the truck and driving again, into the night, down the highway. James drifting in the passenger seat before falling asleep. James waking up to a horrific screech, a crash, the shattering of glass. James scrambling out of a flipped and flattened truck, friend dead inside. James breathing too ragged, too heavy, too far inside himself to speak to the man that made his way down from the highway to help.

James in the police station, far from home, lying far too easily for someone that never had to. James making up stories. Not James in eleventh grade, now from two cities over from his home, no dead boy in a parking lot, only a dead pen pal in a flattened truck off the highway. Somehow getting out of it, dropped off two cities away from home, couldn’t understand how the police were fooled. James on the streets, thirty dollars in his pocket, lying to the man who helped him that he lives in the church. I don’t remember where it is, I’m sorry, he says to the man. The man understands, these things happen, you’re in shock, I’ll take you home. James, confused at how these people could fall for such a lie, how horrible the system must be, or how horrible he must be, to let him get away with this. Dirty words in his mouth.

James in a church, two cities away from home, sitting in the second row of pews, looking up at the stained glass scene in front of him, thinking about his parents, thoughts dead and left in that parking lot in Georgia.

.

.

.

Ryan four years later, in a city lives away from his home, the season turning to winter. Ryan living in a men’s home in the downtown college area, a small anonymous building tucked away between a laundromat and a thrift store.

Ryan with nightmares, Ryan with a dead friend, a dead boy in a parking lot, lives away from his new home. He named the dead boy James. He tells himself it makes it easier to comprehend.

Ryan wandering the streets, stepping into the bistro near one of the colleges to pick up lunch. His home often can’t provide more than one meal a day. It’s more for people that need a little help than people like him. This city has a lot of things like that, he thinks, a lot of little things.

He pulls coins from his pocket and hands them to the girl at the counter. He sits outside on a bench and eats his food. He can’t tell what he ordered, doesn’t really care. He’s halfway through eating when the girl come out of the bistro, dragging bags of trash behind her. Ryan gets up and helps her, and she smiles, two strangers dragging trash to a dumpster together. She talks about the college she goes to, studying theatre, asks Ryan what he does. He says he doesn’t do anything. She asks about his job, he says he doesn’t really have a steady one. She says her name is Lindsay.

Ryan comes back a few times, like usual. The bistro is close to his home, it’s cheap, it’s good, it’s easy. Lindsay is there a few times, asks him if he could take out the trash. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t. She talks to him about her theatre degree, talks about the commune she lives in, what it’s like being manager of the tiny bistro. She offers to pay him to hang around and do odd jobs, help her out a little. He accepts. It'll put money in his pocket. 

* * *

A few months after that, Ryan starts living in Lindsay’s commune. The people there are interesting. Theatre majors, art students, animators, tech-savvy kids. Ryan likes it there. It’s more exciting than the anonymous men’s home between a laundromat and a thrift store.

Ryan opens up a little to them. He feels lighter, the memory of James drifting. The edges growing softer.

* * *

He’s out alone when it happens again, wandering the city in the early morning like a ghost. He doesn’t go anywhere in particular, walking wherever the streetlamps take him. He passes an alley and gets dragged into it by the collar of his jacket, slammed up against the concrete wall of the next building, a woman driving her fist into his shoulder. Knee to knee, knife to throat. Demands for something Ryan didn’t have.

Ryan didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, focus on the knife. He jerks his head away and it runs across his jaw, and he moves forward and pushes the woman away. She trips and impales herself on a jagged bar sticking out from a heap of trash. Ryan listens to her knife falling to the ground, her gasps, the gurgle of blood escaping from her throat, pooling in her internal system. He stands in shock over her, waiting for it to stop, but it doesn’t. It’s slow and painful and probably burns. He bends over for her knife and swipes it across her throat, mind blank. She stops moving, stops making sounds. The alley absent of gurgles.

He feels the heavy weight of the knife in his hand, the bile at the back of his throat, the blood running down his neck. He stumbles a few feet and throws up in a trashcan. He makes his way home, packs a bag, and goes without giving any form of goodbye. You didn’t do anything wrong, you’re a good person he says, trying to convince himself.

He leaves Ryan with Lindsay, with her commune, with the funny college kids he’d been living with for months. He leaves Ryan in the alley with the dead woman, the same way he left James in the parking lot.

.

.

.

Haywood six years later, harder, colder, experienced. In a state miles away from any home he ever had, killing people for cash. It’s gotten easier, he tells himself, methodically cleaning his tools. He pushes the thought that he may like it away every night. He made a home in his head, physically living in temporary places with temporary people. Sometimes he lives with the people he kills. He’s good, cleans up well, efficient. What a morbid thing to be proud of.

* * *

He finds himself in Liberty City, following the call for work. He gets a small one room apartment for sleep and storage. He keeps it impersonal. It’s how he gets by nowadays.

* * *

Haywood with a fast car, Haywood with a patched jacket, Haywood with new scars. Haywood with ghosts, Haywood making ghosts. Haywood finding nothing in everything. Haywood with a withered heart and broken moral compass. Haywood with a heavy bank account and a knife twirled between fingers.

Haywood with influential contacts, a drawer full of disposable phones, a fridge full of client demands. Bring me this part of him and this part of her. Trophies. It sickens him. Haywood with a desire to kill the people who pay him, the people that try to tame him, take something from them instead. The wolf biting back. Haywood reduced to his skill, to his flat efficiency. Thinks he must’ve picked something up from those theatre kids afterall.

Haywood giving up, Haywood letting work take him, Haywood finding joy in his horrible reality. Haywood with a car crash and Haywood with a knife across the jaw. James dead in a parking lot and Ryan dead in an alley. Dirty words and dirty actions.

.

.

.

 Vagabond four years later in Los Santos, a new city for bad opportunities. He’s made a name for himself now, keeps it impersonal, it’s the only way to get by alive nowadays. He has hobbies, mostly books and videogames, something to spend his money on. Still lives small and anonymous. He keeps Haywood curled up inside him, a little ball in a little protective ribcage. Keeps a mental box for Haywood and a mental box for the Vagabond. Human here, killer there, a little bit of both between.

Vagabond with a faster car, Vagabond with a bulletproof vest under a stained leather jacket, Vagabond with armour to cover the scars. Vagabond with a mask, Vagabond with nicknames and codenames, Vagabond with some names that sour his tongue. Vagabond with a fortune built on things that made him shake a lifetime ago.

* * *

Vagabond cornered in a bar, talking with a man about work. Vagabond negotiating paychecks. Vagabond shaking hands and signing contracts. Vagabond with a sick smile behind a skull mask.

* * *

Vagabond two years later, in a crew now, the Fake AH Crew, something they try to call a family. Vagabond higher than when he was solo, living in a criminal empire. Vagabond with a knife, with a gun, sick laughter singing harmonies with blood splatter.

Haywood tentatively stepping out, Haywood laughing genuinely and making friends. Haywood feeling lighter, the edges of his mind growing softer. Haywood finding home in the crew, feeling warm at the words FAKE branded on Los Santos.

Haywood reclaiming Ryan’s name from the alley, Haywood leaving James and not-Ryan behind. The lines between Haywood and Vagabond and newcomer Ryan becoming less clear, boxes spilling into each other.

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: got on computer and fixed some formatting things 
> 
> sorry if anything looks weird formatting wise, i'm uploading from my phone at 1:00AM because wow that's a great idea 
> 
> i forgot this was in my docs and it isn't that bad. there are some lines i'm weirdly proud of


End file.
